


the devil's details

by relationshipcrimes



Series: shuake week 2019 [3]
Category: Persona 5
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-16
Updated: 2019-10-16
Packaged: 2020-12-16 10:08:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21034529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/relationshipcrimes/pseuds/relationshipcrimes
Summary: When Akechi is sentenced to six years in prison after Shido's change of heart, Akira makes sure to stay in touch.





	the devil's details

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Shuake Week 2019, Day 3: Meeting/Reunion/Goodbye.
> 
> Highkey inspired by the epilogue to Black Star by HassouToby.

Every month, when Akira’s back from Inaba and spending the weekend in Leblanc, Akira packs a little red bag with a thermos of coffee, a paper take-out box of curry, a single cheap plastic fork, a set of napkins, a pinch of salt, a bit of cream, a stack of letters, and one slice of cake from Haru, flavored depending on the month: peaches and strawberries for August, almonds for September, pumpkin for October, and raspberries for November. Every month, he pads it just right to keep the cake cold and the coffee hot and the curry from spilling, drops Morgana off with Futaba, apologizes to Futaba for not spending more time with her on his weekend back in Tokyo, and then boards a bus at four in the morning, when it’s still dark and usually chilly outside. He sits in the far back, just behind the right back wheel. He doesn’t listen to music or watch TV on his phone. Other passengers board as the bus trundles across Tokyo, picking up mostly young folk, from the teens to the middle aged; the older passengers are rarer, but Akira recognizes them because they tend to be faces who, like Akira, come again and again, traveling the same route, likely off to see the same faces.

Every month, passengers board and sit and chat and sleep and get up and stretch and get up and leave and sit down and stare and get up and leave. Every month, the bus trundles out of Tokyo, picking up and dropping out bodies all along the roads as the streets become longer, less crowded, with less turns, stretching out into wooded areas, inching higher. Every month, by the time they’re out of any city proper and into suburban areas, it’s high noon, and the few people left on the bus are napping from the early wake-up or scrolling through their phones, and every month, Akira sits on the bus just behind the right back wheel with his little red bag and waits and waits and waits.

Every month, Akira is the last person on the bus at one o’clock sharp, when the bus reaches its last stop and heaves a great sigh as it settles back down, and Akira gets up with his red bag and steps out the doors alone.

Then he checks himself into jail.

Every month, he puts his little red bag through the metal detector, lets the guard poke around in it. It’s always the same guard, and it’s always the same food, and the guard always pokes around in it with rubber gloves, coffee first, curry second, cake last, except a little bit less every month, because it’s always the same food and he never finds any contraband in it and Akira’s got his good-boy glasses on and the guard is just as tired of destroying Haru’s cakes as Akira is. The guard always takes the salt. The guard lets Akira keep the cream if he puts it in the coffee. The guard opens all the letters and doesn’t repack them, so Akira has to do it himself. Akira takes out his keys, then his watch, then his wallet, then his ID, then his phone, then his shoes, his jacket, his belt, and the earrings Tatsumi-san gave him when Akira moved back to Inaba, in that order. He does not remove his glasses, because he acted like they were prescription the first go around and nobody’s questioned him since. He goes through the metal detector. He’s patted down. He gets his little red bag back. He puts back on his shoes, his jacket, his wallet, his ID, and locks away the rest in a cubby under a guard’s supervision. They used to show him to the visiting room, but they don’t anymore; nowadays, they just wave him through.

Every month, Akira sits in the visiting room on the plastic blue folding chair with his little red bag on his lap and waits just a bit more.

Every month, the guard on the other side of the window opens the door, and Goro sits down on the other side of the window and says, “I told you not to come.”

Every month, Akira says, “I wouldn’t have to if you ever called.”

Every month, Goro says, “You would have come anyway.”

“Don’t you like being proven right?”

_This_ month, Goro looks a little more tense than usual, except Goro has been in a permanent state of tense ever since he was put here. It’s Goro’s fifth month in jail and the last of Shido’s loyalists haven’t killed him yet. In fact, Goro looks suspiciously untouched, with neither a bruise nor blemish on him anywhere, which is probably why Goro’s so tense. Goro knows he’s running out of time, but they have no idea when the deadline is. Anyone could have a wallet lined with the last of Shido's conspiracy's money.

“How’ve you been?” Akira asks.

“Have you heard anything about the Kirijo group?” Goro says instead.

Behind Goro, the security guard blinks and stands a little straighter.

Hm.

“No,” Akira lies, the picture-perfect third-year student, over-round glasses and all. “Sorry, I don’t really hear anything now that I’m back in Inaba. Here—” Quickly, he pours the coffee into a paper cup, puts the coffee and the paper take-out box and the little cake and the flimsy plastic fork and the napkins into the metal tray to slide it over to Goro’s side.

“You don’t have to do this,” says Goro, like he does every month.

“You’re welcome, Go-chan,” says Akira, like _he_ does every month, and puts the stack of letters in the metal tray too.

Akira’s never asked what’s in those letters and Goro doesn’t share, but some of the Thieves are pretty religious about it, since Goro never deigns to call and it's not like they can call him. Goro ignores the food in favor of the letters, flicking through the names of the senders: Futaba, Makoto, Ann, Yusuke, Sojiro. Just looking at those letters feels crushing. Akira doesn't know how he reads them. There’s something horrendously sterile about jail—not the sort of jail of being crushed under society’s chains, but the sort of jail that’s just a holding cell, like putting two people and one relationship in a time capsule without air or water or sun. Akira thinks he might actually hate this more than the Velvet Room. It makes everything feel suffocatingly inconsequential, even handwritten letters and homecooked meals. “How are you?” Akira asks again.

Goro’s got his thinking face on, which almost makes Akira think Goro’s going to talk about his feelings. “You’ve seriously never heard of the Kirijo group?” Goro says instead.

Akira studiously doesn’t look at the guard behind Goro. “I’ve no idea what that is.”

“Rich, apparently,” Goro replies with a frown. “And I’ve barely heard of them myself, which is what’s infuriating. Well, here I am, hearing along the grapevine that _they’ve_ heard about me, but that tells me nothing, because everyone’s heard about me. You can wipe that smirk off your face, Kurusu, it’s hardly an overstatement.”

Akira does not wipe the smirk off his face. “They must not be very important if you’ve never heard of them,” says Akira. “Are you sure you aren’t going stir crazy in there?”

“Of course I’m going stir crazy,” Goro mutters, and pops the take-out container open. “Please tell Sakura-san this is delicious,” which is another thing he says every month.

“You haven’t even tasted it.”

“Because I’d tell him it was delicious even if he made it with dirt and cyanide, so it doesn’t matter when I say it, does it?”

“You’d lie to him?”

“For his peace of mind, which he could use now that Sakura-the-younger is back in school? Compliments to the chef cost me nothing, Kurusu.”

Akira misses Goro so much, sometimes. Especially so when Goro is right in front of him, on the other side of the window. And maybe that shows on his face, because Goro stops and looks down. “You really don’t have to do this,” he says again.

“You’re right,” says Akira.

“I don’t mean the food, Kurusu. I mean that you don’t have to…”

Goro goes silent. They’re only five months into his sentence. He’s got another five years and seven months to go. Goro told him before the trial even began that Akira should be realistic and recognize that a three-month fling between teenagers isn’t going to survive a six-year prison sentence. (That's assuming Goro even lives that long.)

“I already said you’re right,” says Akira. “You should try the cake before it goes warm.”

Goro looks tired, now. He pops the lid on the cake. “Please tell Okumura-san that this is delicious too.”

“Haru’s not Sojiro, you know.”

“Then tell her it’s awful.”

“She’ll be upset if you don’t tell her the truth.”

“Then tell her it's delicious,” and then without stopping for breath: “If you come across anything about the Kirijo group—”

“You really have too much time on your hands in there if you’re chasing rumors, Go-chan.”

Goro inspects the cake, relatively untouched this month, then sticks his fork right down the middle. Jam oozes out of the center like blood. Thanks, Haru. “What else am I supposed to do in here except chase rumors,” Goro says without inflection.

“You could focus on what you’re doing after jail?”

Goro snorts. Takes a bite of cake. Doesn’t respond.

Right. Because Goro probably isn’t going to live that long.

“It’s got to be better to think about getting out than chasing rumors in prison, at least,” says Akira.

“Assuming I… get out,” says Goro, instead of _Assuming I live that long_. Thank god Goro’s paranoia still protects him even now. He’s rather torturing the jam with his fork, now. “Sure, let’s play out that scenario: When I get out, when I’m twenty-five with no resume and no high school degree and no college degree and a criminal record and a hell of a bad reputation—let’s think about that for a second, shall we? Truly, whatever _shall_ I do with myself after this?”

Goro shoves a bite of cake irritably in his own mouth. If Akira were Goro’s team leader in the Metaverse right now, he’d say that Goro still has a tendency of getting lost in the forest and forgetting to look at the trees, and that maybe Goro should move to the back-up team until he’s cooled off. Personally, Akira thinks Goro’s just too smart for his own good. He can’t stop putting together the big picture long enough to see the devil in the details.

“You could come home and be my trophy husband,” says Akira instead.

Goro makes a face like he nearly swallowed a rock whole. Akira has _such_ excellent timing; he really hasn’t lost it since the Metaverse. “Are you alright?”

Goro coughs into a napkin to clear his throat.

“Too sweet?” Akira says.

Goro’s throat works. “By far,” Goro says with irritation, crushing the napkin into his hand. Akira beams.

“Try not to die.”

“I’m _trying_,” Goro snaps.

“So in this scenario, you’re twenty-five, no high school degree and a criminal record…” Akira pretends to think about this in a mockery of Goro’s own thinking-pose from the old Detective Prince interview. “We can start with the basics. First you come home. Preferably alive.”

Goro takes a deep breath, probably preparing the same song-and-dance lecture about how Akira should date someone else and how their entire relationship was built on lies in the first place and Akira’s an idiot for chasing one high school sweetheart from second year and blah, blah, blah. Akira waits. Goro takes another deep breath, and lets it out in a long sigh. “Home to _where_?” he asks tiredly.

“Hmmm. In this scenario… you can come home with me. I have my own apartment now and everything. Rent’s ridiculously cheap out there.”

Goro’s eyes narrow. “I’m not living in _Inaba_ of all god-forsaken places, Kurusu.”

“You’re crushing my dreams of telling my parents I’ve eloped with a hot convicted murderer who sexily ravished my virgin youth and turned me into a wanton city harlot,” says Akira, and Goro nearly drops the cake.

“Kurusu—”

“Come _on_—”

“—shut your _filthy_ fucking—"

“—the look on their faces would be—”

“Inmate!” the guard warns.

It’s too late. Goro’s biting his bottom lip like he can physically button down the smirk on his face. “Imagine it,” says Akira. “We could wake up every morning way too early in the morning because you have work with the Inaba PD—”

“—no police department is going to hire me after the shitshow with Shido, Kurusu.”

“Shhh, listen,” says Akira. “It’ll be, what, four in the morning—Morgana will probably be snoozing on the heater, because Inaba gets cold in the winter. I’ll kiss you good morning because I’ll be wide awake and functioning—”

“—completely unrealistic,” Goro interrupts.

“Yeah, alright. You’ll kiss _me_ good morning because I’ll be wishing I’d never been born and you take some sort of sick satisfaction in being an early riser, but I’ll get up just for you. You’ll brush your teeth and go through your ridiculous morning routine—“

“Are you mocking me in your own fantasy?”

“—while I’ll make coffee with the beans the Boss will send us every so often, the way he taught me to, at the ugly kitchenette with the crack in the countertop because we can’t afford anything else. The kitchenette is way too small, so when you come in to make breakfast, we’ll have to stand close together, which’ll be fine because it’ll be cold as hell. We can share a blanket while you’re waiting for your toast. You can do that annoying thing where you backseat-drive me making coffee because you think you know everything, but especially so when you’re wide awake at four in the morning and feeling superior about yourself—”

“What part of me makes you think I enjoy you insulting me,” Goro interrupts.

Akira inhales and opens his mouth.

“_Do not_ fucking answer that. I’m saying that this is the equivalent of a child pulling someone’s pigtails and calling it flirting.”

“But you like it when I pull your hair.”

Goro makes a strangled noise. The guard clears her throat loudly. “Two minute warning,” she says.

“Your work lunch will probably be whatever leftovers we had from last night,” Akira goes on, like Goro isn’t rapidly turning a satisfying shade of red, “from when we both came home too late to get dinner, so we ordered out while telling each other about our days—”

“_This_ is your ideal future? Are you thirty years old?”

“—and I think that since it’ll be winter, you can’t cycle because of snow, so we’ll be waiting for the bus. You’d probably be telling me that you need to get dressed, but _I_ don’t want to give up your body heat, and you probably woke up twenty minutes earlier than you had to anyway, so we’ve got time to spare to wait on the couch by the window for the bus to pull up with a cup of coffee each. And I like it when you’re not dressed in your day clothes yet, because then I can put my head on your shoulder and use you like a pillow. Maybe I’ll put the coffee down and put my arms around your waist because it’s _very_ cold. It’s so cold that I’ve got no choice but to put my hands up your shirt, I think. Which you’d probably hate—”

“Why would I want to touch your cold fingers.”

“—but that’s too bad, because by the time you get out I’ll have waited forever to feel your heartbeat under your skin, to hear you breathe when we sleep together, to listen to your voice when you’re tired or angry or happy or out of breath, and I’ll want to spend every moment we have together with my mouth pressed against your neck.”

Goro doesn’t say anything now.

“I want to feel when your breath hitches from my cold fingers, and when my hands settle on your hips, and I want to feel your throat against my lips when you tell me that the bus is coming soon, as if I don’t already know that. I’ll tell you that I don’t want you to leave, and tuck my cold fingers under your waistband. I want you alive and with me, so I can press kisses along your shoulder, up your jaw, to your mouth—"

The guard clears her throat. Goro’s entire face is a deep red. “Thirty seconds,” says the guard.

“_I_ think,” says Akira, “the future could be pretty good.”

Goro’s got this little pained look in his eyes, like he’s seeing something he wants and can’t have. Like if only Goro didn’t have his impending death by black-box conspiracy looming over his head, Goro might actually go for that fantasy-land that Akira’s been spinning for him as his new life. Like for the first time since Goro saw his revenge and his reason for living go down the drain, he has something entire new he wants to live for.

“Believe me?” Akira asks.

Goro looks down at his fists, still strangling that poor napkin.

“Wrap it up,” says the guard, like she does every month.

Like every other month, Akira recaps the thermos, ties up the little red bag, and stands back up. He adjusts his glasses. Goro’s never once asked him why he still wears them when he doesn’t need them. You never know who might be listening, after all.

“This month, I can…” Goro frowns. “I’ve got my allotted phone calls. I could… if you want… call you this month.”

Akira beams at him. “No need to start now,” says Akira. “I’ll be back next month no matter what.”

Goro’s giving him a hard look, but says nothing. It’s hard to talk when the wrong people could overhear.

“Don’t you have more important people to call than just your silly boyfriend, Go-chan?” says Akira. And before Goro can reply, Akira adds: “Your dad, maybe.”

“Die,” says Goro.

“Inmate!” snaps the guard.

Akira smiles that coy smile that he used to when he was inviting Goro to kiss it off his face, and settles for watching Goro bite his bottom lip again. Nothing to be done about the glass in the way. They’ll just have to wait until Goro is out.

“Just be good, and you can come home and be my trophy husband,” says Akira.

“I’m not some prize to be won,” Goro says grumpily.

“Of course not,” says Akira, and winks. “You’re a heart to be stolen.”

And Akira’s _never_ been one to wait for treasure to come to him.

*

Every month, at four in the afternoon, Akira gets back on the empty bus, takes his seat behind the right back wheel. Smooths out his pants. Replaces his earrings and his watch.

Removes his fake glasses.

Pulls out his phone and calls a number.

She picks up on the first ring. “_Tell me you have good news._”

“He has your number now, but Oracle was right,” he says. “Shido’s old friends are in there after all.”

“_God dammit_,” says Kirijo, because it’s one thing to suspect and another thing to know. “_But you got in contact with him?_”

“I did. I couldn’t ask if he’d be interested. I also think he knows you’re interested, but he couldn’t say much, either. We weren’t alone.”

A disappointed noise. “_We’ll have to take the risk, then. His knowledge of the cognitive world is too valuable to lose. But he has my contact now, at least—good work._”

“Do we have a timeline on when we can move him?”

“_I’ll get back to you the second I do_,” she replies. “_But he’s got to call us before anything else, and then we’ll have to discuss the terms and conditions of working with the Shadow Operatives, and then he’ll have to agree._”

“Assuming he agrees, then,” says Akira. He can’t stop thinking about the guard behind Goro’s head.

“_I don’t assume things around Wild Cards,_ _Kurusu_."

"He won't take a chance to avoid being assassinated?" Akira asks dryly.

Kirijo doesn't answer. Then: "_His crimes were real even if the charges weren't. He may very well wish to carry out the sentence, consequences be damned._" Another pause. "_It's a possibility that I believe we should be prepared for._"

Akira closes his eyes.

“_I'm... sorry_,” Kirijo replies.

"He's not dead yet."

"_No_," Kirijo agrees gracefully. "_You're quite right. __We'll just have to wait for his move, now._"

Waiting like how he was supposed to wait for the world to get better? For Kamoshida to go away, for Madarame to stop being a shit, for Shido to turn himself in? Like how he was supposed to wait for hearts to steal themselves, for Sae to come around on her own, for an act of god to save him from the interrogation room? Like how he was supposed to wait for Goro to pry himself away from Shido on his own?

Goro’s got to make his own decisions now, but there’s more than one way to change a heart.

“Of course,” says Akira.

*

When the lights go out that night, Goro pulls out the crushed napkin and the little plastic pill inside—Takemi’s work, still smelling vaguely of cake—and pops it open. Inside is a telephone number. Two days from now, he’ll use his allotted phone call; the number will reroute to a proxy, which is Shido’s old telephone number; this is the number that will be recorded in the prison surveillance records, and there will be nothing unusual about a son calling his father. The proxy will reroute to seven different countries for encryption, scrambled with a bit of Medjed wizardry and a _lot_ of Okumura funding; the tech that should be recording the prison landline will go haywire, then record a missed call, which makes sense considering Shido’s old telephone number is no longer active. Now safely outside of the surveillance of the prison recordings, Goro will be wired through to a landline no one can trace, where no legal or existing person will pick up.

For now, Goro’s got a phone number in his hands, and when he closes his eyes, he can almost see it, a small distorted desire criminals like him don’t deserve to have in their hearts, but he can’t bring himself to let it go: an apartment, cold in the winter, with a kitchenette and a countertop cracked along the middle, the smell of fresh coffee…

**Author's Note:**

> twitter [@r_crimes](https://twitter.com/r_crimes)  
tumblr [@akechicrimes](http://akechicrimes.tumblr.com)


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